S. Awan is an independent journalist, culture lover and student of history, navigating the depths of various aspects of culture, politics, music, film, the controversial and the weird.
Also a musician, and part-time freelance, involuntary human being. Also occasionally lives on the moon. Also is a ghost. And a cigarette butt that hasn't been put out properly; so, you know, there's still, like, smoke coming out of it and stuff...

In the Hands of Madmen: A Future Hiroshima and a Silent Mass Media…

Do you ever get the feeling that our collective destiny or well-being is in the hands of madmen?

Something very worrying has been suggesting itself for a while now – a notable change in language that I was beginning to notice over the last two years or so: but which has very much come more sharply into focus in recent weeks.

Specifically, I’m referring to the strange way that it suddenly has become acceptable for officials or strategists to talk about nuclear strikes in terms of ‘first use’ or preemptive strikes.

The accepted language or dynamics surrounding nuclear weapons or policy seem to have shifted at some point in the last two years – and it seems like something we should be very concerned about. Unfortunately, mainstream media outlets seem to be entirely uninterested.

Why it has particularly come into focus right now is because of the new ‘US Nuclear Posture Review’, which emerged about two weeks ago, and which one observer has described as ‘the world’s most dangerous document’.

This seems to have been a very, very serious document with big implications – but it also appears to have been broadly ignored by the media: despite concerns that the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) essentially paves the way for a nuclear-weapons-based mass murder of civilians on a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The NPR essentially seems to justify the idea of nuclear first use or preemptive strike by the United States. In a world in which no country but the United States has previously carried out a nuclear attack, it is rather unsettling that the notion of preemptive nuclear attack is now being openly discussed or envisioned.

Two weeks ago, Jan Oberg, writing at The Transnational, aptly noted the overwhelming media silence on the subject: ‘The mainstream media are totally irresponsible in their priorities. At the moment of writing, five hours after the world’s most dangerous document was presented, no major Western media has featured it prominently. This means it won’t be. No chance it would go viral. The increasing risk of nuclear war isn’t important. What threats to humanity end up at the bottom of page 38 after 10 pages of sports, entertainment and celebrity stories…?’

Indeed, the mainstream media coverage of this subject has been non-existent, as far as I can tell. Most people probably never heard about the NPR at all.

This seems to be a serious shift in the mindset regarding nuclear weapons, with the prevailing view having previously been that the WMDs were meant as a deterrant only: the threat of mutually-assured destruction ensuring that such weapons were never actually intended to be used.

But even more worrying than this shift in language or policy is the implication of the ‘first use’ or preemptive option being applied even in a scenario that doesn’t involve the mutual threat of nuclear weapons. So, for example, in January (a couple of weeks before the NPR was rolled out), the Pentagon had even proposed using nuclear weapons in response to a cyber attack.

What? A nuclear response to a cyber attack? What world are we living in?

Again, do you ever get the feeling our fate rests in the hands of madmen?

I published a long article here a few years ago on the 70th anniverary of the attack on Hiroshima, exploring the horrific effects of it, the events leading to that act, the moral conflict among key figures in the US, the psychology of it, the propagandising for it, and the ongoing question of whether it was in any way a justified act. Arguably, that question remains divisive, with permanent arguments and counter-arguments (even if most people are morally horrified by the dropping of the atomic bomb).

–

–

But what’s extraordinary is that, in 2018, there isn’t even the debate – or the hint of moral conflict. Just a casual roll-out of an official nuclear posture that seems to indicate a first-strike policy being justified. And a media that doesn’t seem to care.

I have also been concerned lately with the increased talk by political figures in the UK (including Michael Fallon and Theresa May) about nuclear strikes, including ‘first strike’ options. It had struck me, a year or so ago, when I heard British politicians talking about first-strike possiblities, that this was new language being casually used where it wouldn’t have been in the past.

Be clear that the UK seems to be a part of this equation as well: or at least part of the new language or posturing.

Paul Rogers, of the Global Security Consultant to Oxford Research Group, warns that ‘Current revision of the United States’ declared nuclear posture is only the most visible manifestation of adjustments to all the main nuclear arsenals, with the UK at the vanguard of deploying technologies potentially calibrated for pre-emptive rather than retaliatory strike.’

I was also worried by the fact that President Trump’s military decided to drop the biggest non-nuclear bomb (MOAB) since World War II on a cave complex in Afghanistan instead of using a more conventional weapon – as if they were very much trying to send out a broader signal.

As I’ve said here before, at some other time or in some other circumstances, we might rely on cooler heads prevailing.

But we’re in the President Trump era now; in which provocations and a glorying in military firepower seems to be the order of the day. With a military-industrial complex that has its saviour in the form of Donald Trump (and a Donald Trump who says things like “if we have nukes, why can’t we use them?”), you might fear that the omens aren’t great.

And that’s before you even think about the spectacled megalomaniac in Pyonyang.

About a year ago, in an article about the nuclear-strike drill/exercise that was then being conducted in New York (‘Operation Gotham Shield’), I was speculating that the reason for the large-scale drill was to practise for a potential retalliatory strike by North Korea, Russia or China in response to what would be a future first strike by the US.

I wrote then that ‘it should probably be considered that the drill/exercise might have the hypothetical scenario be a *retaliatory* attack by one of those foreign powers…’

I was only speculating then: but this NPR announcement seems to strongly suggest the Pentagon is seriously considering future nuclear attacks. Or, perhaps more confusingly, that they simply want to terrify or intimidate rival powers with the idea that the US would strike first.

But even that latter scenario seems to be incredibly dangerous.

Paul Craig Roberts was hinting a year ago at ‘changes in US war doctrine that indicate that Washington is preparing a preemptive nuclear attack on Russia and China…’. And he warned, ‘It is extremely dangerous to all of mankind for Washington to convince two nuclear powers that Washington is preparing a preemptive nuclear strike against them. It is impossible to imagine a more reckless and irresponsible act.’

But, again, what’s also really curious is the mass media silence on the subject.

Great article. I didn’t see a reblog button but for the first time used the “share this” wordpress button to reblog on mine. I just copied the entire article there, with all the proper links and all that. f you want to look at the results, here’s the link: https://shatara46.wordpress.com/

Just before he left Dick Cheney had a document registered in 1993 which was about preemptive use of nukes. http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/2003/030224nukefirst.html
And unofficially they are believed to have used dozens of mininukes since the 80s.
They used one 5kt neutron bomb outside Basra the last day of the first Gulf war as a retribution for a prior attack with a scud missile against americans.
—
the following quote is from a comment to this article: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/13/fall-o13.html
“While depleted uranium was used at Basra, the birth defects there started rising sharply in 1998, which was 7 years after the first Gulf War and 5 years before the second. No explanation is offered for this very large time lag.”
My remark:That could be a sign of additional mininukes used in connection with car bombs.
—
An expert believed that the heavy bunkerbusters were sometimes a cover for actually employing nukes.http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2072.htm
“Detonations and deceit
THE IRON FIST OF TACTICAL NUKES, HIDDEN IN THE VELVET GLOVE OF STORIES ABOUT FUEL-AIR BOMBS, MOABS AND BUNKER-BUSTERS:
The detonation of the new “massive bomb” is a ploy to disguise the use of Nuclear Weapons by the US in the event of an attack on Iraq?
Updated 03/14/03
The USA has already used Nuclear Weapons in GWI and Afghanistan, and is duping us as it prepares to use them again in GWII”
—
About birth defects

People are confusing some observations with the outcome of using depleted uranium when in reality it was tactical nukes. There were birth defects such that only very strong radiation could explain them

Brilliant info, as usual, PeterGrafstrm, thanks. I was also aware, during researching the events in Libya in 2011, that there were serious claims that either NATO or the US had dropped a mini nuke on a Libyan town.
The subject of cancer and birth-defects, etc, from depleted uranium use (or even, as you suggest, actual nukes being mistaken for DU weapons) warrants a whole book on its own.

I continued to be horrified and repulsed on a daily basis by the sociopathic fraud currently occupying the White House, and cannot understand what the hell has happened to the 35-40% of our population – all of whom are either abjectly cruel, delusional or outright morons?

I would have preferred anyone over Trump, with the exception of Ted Cruz. As for dissing much of the electorate, Trump certainly went out of his way to accomplish that in spades. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who still supports him after all he’s said and done is deplorable.

Quote: “cannot understand what the hell has happened to the 35-40% of our population – all of whom are either abjectly cruel, delusional or outright morons?”

You have to realize that these you mention have always formed the basis for support of totalitarian and repressive systems. Hitler didn’t get where he did because he had the support of the intellectual minority; neither did Franco, neither did Mussolini, neither did Stalin, all powerful dictators of a certain time frame. They had the support of the sheeple, pure and simple and they knew, like the White House “frauds” of this day, how to use it. The easiest to manipulate are those without purpose of agenda. That’s the majority of the 7 billion numbnuts currently destroying their planet, and that with absolute abandon. If nukes went off in the China Sea or the Korean peninsula, the majority, that being the “deplorables” of Clinton fame in the States, Canada, Mexico and much of Europe, would stand up and give each other high-fives and cheer.

‘Do you ever get the feeling..?’ Some and some and… whose, hands? Tension and the war. Madmen need removing far-enough from the levers. A battle over and God-intention. Not like WWF wrestling and a set-up but bare-knuckle and to the death. We all for good and for all, on the right side. At least this. Get ya and ‘a notable change in language ‘. There’s a view that power-blocks are fake and for fear purposes but no-one should be certain. Can be. The rhetoric seems too sincere not to be genuine aggression. Add to this and designed to induce population panic having limited value. Most everyone far too confident in normality bias. Would take a regional mass massacre to shake this up. If the plan; how to restrain the outworking and consequences? Reasonable evidence to suggest ‘nuclear’ itself is a put-on. No comfort, in levels of explosive power, sufficient to mimic and… more all and nothing like now on the other(?) side. Radiation and air-based poisons aside, maintaining integrated dependent social structures are that critical. Remain vulnerable with this first-strike crap. To the uttermost. As for ‘the world’s most dangerous document’ unreported? Again, doesn’t bode well. That this isn’t for public consumption and serious exposure. Serious.

Mass media silence on the subject, because they take order about being silence.;) As Paul C. Roberts said, “Washington is preparing a preemptive nuclear strike against them,” but in broaden explaning, Washington and the others are spreading the fear of nuclear warfare, creating a climate of terror and oppression for their own people, so that they can “legitimize”(!) the attack they would make on any other targeted country. In fact, I see the attitudes of the aggressive countries and the wars in the Middle East, which have lasted nearly 10 years like that: By creating a fear subconscious that will always remind Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to create constantly like Dresden or Vietnam disasters. Already anybody did not sit on the defendant chairs in the international criminal tribune due to crimes in the Dresden or Vietnam.;)

Copyright Notice

All images and videos used on this blog (unless otherwise stated) are used on a 'Fair Use' basis. If you have any objection or complaint concerning use of an image or video, please contact me directly (using the contact form at the top of the page) and the offending item will be immediately removed. Thank you.
Also - to non-WordPress users - please, when re-posting articles from this site (either whole or in part), include a credit to The Burning Blogger of Bedlam and a link back to the source.

Meta

SUPPORT THIS BLOG

If you value independent journalism of this kind, consider supporting this blog with either a one-time or regular 'donation' (of any amount) via Paypal. With enough support, more time, energy and resources can be devoted to research and to higher quality content.